


Moony

by Cascaper



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Bandages, Fights, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Singing, Tension, as it were, if someone can stop being a stubborn butt, they're not in a relationship yet here actually, we've got it all... almost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 04:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19349476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cascaper/pseuds/Cascaper
Summary: In which the only things that spread faster than rumors are rumors in melody and rhyme. (Or, Excuses to Rewrite Old Ballads For Fandom Reasons.)





	Moony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nianeyna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nianeyna/gifts), [lilithqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithqueen/gifts).



Estinien was not precisely known for his sociable nature. Often as not he would choose to leap over Ishgard’s rooftops, the better to avoid the streets whilst traveling within the city. It made everything quicker when you didn’t have to deal with folk nudging each other and gawking at the Azure Dragoon, A Mortal Man, Question Mark.  But nowadays, even his usual interaction-averse travels couldn’t save him: he was being haunted wherever he went.

He had no idea whence it had begun, but sometime between their return from Dravania and now, this song had spread like pestilence. No matter where he was in the city, he heard it—from children running errands, from ladies in the Hoplon. Students, servants, sots and squires, all repeating this strange and meandering little melody. It was threatening to nest between Estinien’s own ears, except that he did not sing, and never would.

Even Aymeric knew it. Estinien heard him, whistling along on his way from the Congregation back to House Borel.

“What is that?” he asked, landing neatly on the cobbles beside the startled Lord Commander.

“Hello to you too, Estinien.” Aymeric sounded as if he had just caught his breath again, as Estinien fell into step with him.

“Yes, yes, but what is that?” At the questioning pause, he huffed with impatience. “That song, what is it? ‘Tis all I’ve heard for a week now. Even from the chocobos.”

Halone had never blessed chocobos even with imitative music, but Aymeric did not remind him of this point. Instead he took a slow breath through his nose, which Estinien knew was a bad sign.

“Come now, Aymeric, I’m not some sheltered maiden. Or don’t you want to say it in the open, lest disapproving ears hear the Commander blaspheme?”

“It is nothing like that,” Aymeric protested. But he would not say what it was.

* * *

Nobody would. Not for ages. It was enough to drive Estinien to drink. He didn’t have a table at the Forgotten Knight, per se, but they knew where he liked to lurk and he never spilled on folks’ heads… by accident, at any rate.  

He had hardly been ensconced in the rafters for five minutes before a fresh crowd rolled in, filling the ceiling with their rowdy chatter. For another five minutes, all was quite as usual.

And then someone started the song. With words, this time.

“O what can be ailin’ the surly dragoon?  
O what can be ailin’ him, pray?  
And why does he grumble from night until noon  
In more than his usual way?”

(The others chimed in- “His way- in more than his usual way!” Estinien frowned.)

“He ‘as suffered a blow since ‘e went to the west,  
He is sufferin’ still to this day;   
He ‘as suffered a blow what might fell e’en the best,  
Though ever so hardy be they…

“Though the surly dragoon he has readied ‘is lance,  
Though no beast will catch him by surprise,  
‘E cannot have prepared to be felled by a glance  
From the clearest of bonny blue eyes…”

Estinien stiffened in his seat. Up to this point he had hoped they were not actually singing about him… much less anyone else. His ears began to burn.

“From those bluest of eyes he can have no defense-  
So deep and so swift they ‘ave stung-  
Nor the rose-flushéd lips that ‘ave stolen his sense,  
Nor the words o’ that silvery tongue…” (Some chose to accentuate this last with lewd expressions.)

“O never was seen in these ‘ells-frozen lands  
Aught else like that delicate frame,  
Nor them long sable lashes, nor finely-drawn ‘ands-  
One touch an’ yer never the same!

“O that whippet-thin waist as it bends an’ it sways,  
O the flick of that slenderest wrist,  
They enchant ser dragoon in the wickedest ways,   
So’s he’ll die if ‘e can’t ‘ave a kiss!

“For that well-turned-out calf with its elegant line  
Finer men ‘ave gone out o’ their heads,  
An’ that sweet rounded cheek, so smooth an’ so fine,  
They ‘ave clamored to bring to their beds!” (The refrain was bellowed at this point, with much smacking of thighs and arses.)

That was it. Estinien dropped out of hiding, into almost the center of the room; the singing and swaying ground to a halt as folk jumped in alarm, slopping several drinks onto the floor. “Fury’s tits, it’s him!” someone hissed.

Only the original singer remained undaunted. “Whassamatter with you people? Come on, come on!” Oblivious to the wrath bearing down upon him, he burbled on.

“Aye, that fair silken cheek, tis as pale as the moon,  
An’ never a blush ‘as it known,  
But all that may yet change, if the surly dragoon  
Finds the path for to drive ‘is lance home—”

At which point ser dragoon’s tankard met the man’s nose with a resounding crunch.

“I don’t know what diseased dodo came up with this tripe,” Estinien growled into the surrounding silence.  “But the next one who sings those words in my hearing gets worse than this.”

* * *

“You do realize you’ve just convinced half the city that every word of that song is true? The half that didn’t think so already, that is.” Livorette crossed her arms, leaning back in the chair she’d dragged up beside the washbasin to watch him pick glass out of his hand.

“You didn’t hear it,” Estinien spat.

“No,” she agreed. “I didn’t. But you broke a man’s nose for singing it, then won the resulting brawl singlehanded, and then you knocked at my window by putting your fist through it.  _Honestly_ , Estinien.”

He ignored this, letting the sound of shards hitting porcelain speak for him instead.

“If it helps,” Livorette offered, “I’m pretty sure he wrote those verses himself. Or someone like him did. The original author probably never intended it to be that vulgar.”

“Hmph. The original author had best pray I do not catch them.”

The silence that followed this remark was so charged as to make Estinien look up, to find the Warrior giving him a level stare.

“What? What is that look for?”

“Would you break the author’s nose as well, then?”

“Yes, seeing as they’ve got the whole city singing this rubbish about how I’ve fallen arse over teakettle for- for-” He could not make himself form the name.

“For a pair of bonny blue eyes,” Livorette supplied. “And I think you won’t have such an easy time of that.”

When he did not understand, she waved a hand at herself. “Go on, Estinien, punch me if you can. It might be easier than admitting you spent the entire trip to Zenith and back getting  _moony_  over Alphinaud.” 

* * *

Estinien stalked the rooftops, seething.

It wasn’t true. Of course it wasn’t. 

Even if it were, it hardly mattered beside the fact that Livorette had no concept of  _consequences for her actions_. Though she swore up and down she’d never written aught so explicit as what Estinien had heard, she had opened the gate to its being written for her. Gods, did she know nothing of human nature?

And the b-  _Alphinaud._  She should have thought of Alphinaud. How many moons had she known him, and still she hadn’t picked up on the importance of his being taken seriously? Estinien was no politician, but one didn’t last long in Ishgard without picking up on certain things; even he could see that Alphinaud already had enough factors working against him, not least of which were his looks. Although they could be a way of catching folk off guard- for who expected such powerful intellect to issue forth from such a… such a… source. (“Delicate frame,” as that bilge had it.)

But cleverness or no, there were still plenty who would take his appearance as a tacit excuse to disregard aught he said- and who would now have yet more excuses to do so,  _in rhyme_. Yet Livorette, once Estinien had quite finished telling her all this, only suggested that he get properly treated- since  _she_  wasn’t a healer, wink, wink- and Estinien had left in disgust.

At any rate, it wasn’t true. What she’d said. He clenched his good fist and wound up to leap to the next roof.

“Estinien?” came a voice from under the eaves. 

He said nothing.

“Estinien, no one else on earth would be sitting on the roof above my room at this time of night. Come in, for gods’ sake, you’ll freeze to the shingles.” 

Of course it was him. Of course. The Fury did nothing by halves. Estinien took the roof edge with his good hand and slid in through the window.

Alphinaud’s room was about what one might expect. Desk piled with books and papers, fire burning as high as limited wood supplies would allow, and at least a half dozen blankets strewn round about- as body heat was not one of the boy’s strong points.  Estinien had the sense of being slightly too large for the space, unsure of how to place himself within it.

Why had he come in, again…?

He startled at the sound of the window snapping shut, as though it were scolding him. Next instant Alphinaud was before him, wearing a similar expression.

“I will not bother asking what you’ve done to yourself,” he said, linkpearl flashing at his fingertips as he slipped it into his coat pocket. “I’ve heard. Now sit.”

No amount of inner turmoil could override Estinien’s instinctual response to such a tone; he bristled. “Am I a dog, then?”

“ _Sit_ ,” Alphinaud ordered. “And give me that hand.”

For the second time that night Estinien did as bid. Let the boy play nursemaid then; maybe it would keep him distracted.

Alphinaud made quick work of unwrapping the bandages, inspecting the wounds beneath with such sheer force of concentration that Estinien could practically feel his eyes moving over the skin. Which was just as well, since he was more conscious of the contact between their hands with every passing second.

Why,  _why_  had he come in again…! Madness. Complete madness. He ought to  go plunge head first into a snowbank somewhere. The problem was that this would require him to move, and he seemed to be rooted in place.

“Going to will the cuts closed, are you?” he muttered.

“No,” Alphinaud replied coolly. “I must needs be sure you have not missed any shards.”

Something twisted in Estinien’s chest. All right, so the boy still wasn’t meeting his eyes, but he was speaking to him. Had called him inside. Was practically cradling his slashed-up hand, fingertips hovering mere ilms above- ugh, what  _was_  this? He had never been one to delay the inevitable before… 

“You can stop pretending, you know.” 

Estinien’s stomach dropped like a stone. Here it came. “Pretending…? ”

“Pretending that if you don’t speak of it, I will forget that you have spent this entire evening being righteously wrathful in defense of my honor.” 

“…Hmph,” was all Estinien could manage.

“Livorette said you railed at her for no less than a bell and a half, afterward. I must admit I was surprised. To be frank, I did not know you felt anything whatever on the subject.” 

“…You still don’t.” 

There was a cool sensation coming over his hand now- like a spring breeze, came his senseless thought- and a bright pale light issuing forth from the hovering fingers.  “Indeed. Then would you care to enlighten me as to why, precisely, you took it upon yourself to try the whole tavern by combat? I cannot believe you would be scandalized by a bit of ribaldry.”

Estinien could think of nothing to say.

Alphinaud sighed.  “If you are considering flight, pray wait until I have replaced these dressings.”

“I do not  _fly_.”

“Strategically retreating, then, but nevertheless. I won’t have you getting an infection out of sheer stubbornness.”

He took his precious time with the matter. Reapplying salve, taking out fresh linens. Estinien was certainly fooling himself to imagine the boy’s touches exceeding tender, to think him deliberately lingering with each layer of the cloth over Estinien’s wounds. Then, too, the accuracy of certain phrases became more infuriatingly apparent every moment.   _Slenderest wrist_  indeed,  _finely-drawn hands_ \- no one had any business noticing such things, least of all Estinien, and he was probably going to slice up his other hand in short order because there was not enough glass in the world to shatter—

“Estinien?”

He blinked. Alphinaud was giving him that look, the one where his brows drew just slightly down over rounded eyes. Too godsdamned pretty. For anyone’s good.

“It’s finished,” Alphinaud was saying, “but is it too tight? Here, try and flex the fingers, tell me if it hurts.” 

He nodded.

“Very well, let me-” Blink. “You didn’t flex.”

“Looking at you. Hurts.” 

The instant the words left his lips, Estinien cursed himself to the seventh hell and back. But too late- the boy was already staring at him.

“I… what?”

“Never you mind,” and his voice was rough, but at least he could finally move- to reach the window took two steps; to open it proved more difficult, as the ancient latch chose this moment to stick. He struggled with it, swearing—

—til he felt the gentlest touch on the back of his arm.

“But I do mind,” Alphinaud said, simply. “I don’t wish to cause you pain.”

This would be the death of him. A light hand on his arm and soft words strangling his resolve. “Then let me leave,” Estinien ground out.  _Please. For gods’ sake, boy, this cannot be, it will not stand…_

A small sigh from Alphinaud. “Very well.”

With the last shred of spine left to him, Estinien made good his escape.

**Author's Note:**

> The song I've redone here is "Lord Lovel," which is one of ye olde lovers-part-for-no-good-reason songs. The tune is pretty though. -Edit: found a page with a little midi player to help y'all sing along! (Even though it's a bit dense with backup strings.) http://www.contemplator.com/child/lovel.html Just imagine they're singing it a bit faster and more boisterous. Bouncy, even. 
> 
> As for posting this after it's spent months in my drafts- well. That's on Nianeyna, and her wonderful kindness in making me a Rakshasa MNK set for a wedding present, which pushed me to finally put an ending on the thing. Et voila, here we are.


End file.
